My secondary hard drive just died...

[Transient]

So I'm minding my own business, watching a show I have on my computer, when the video freezes. The mouse still works, but I can't click anything, then I get a BSOD showing a kernel_data_something_error and my computer reboots itself. Scandisk runs and a long list of files get restored or repaired or something (it was going too fast to read). The last few things on the list were a few .lnk files that were on my desktop (are those shortcuts?).

Anyway, my computer restarts and I log on, and everything is dandy, until just now when I went to check some of my personal stuff. Documents, pictures, downloaded movie clips, stuff like that I keep on my second drive. The shortcuts on my desktop don't work, and when I go to My Computer to get to them the long way, the entire drive is missing from the list! :icon33:

It's a 5 year old 10 GB 5400 RPM Western Digital hard drive, but I've never had problems with it before. I knew it would die eventually, so I guess it's fortunate I backed up the whole drive on a CD a few days ago.

Unfortunately, all my porn is gone. That much I didn't back up.
Any way to make sure the drive is totally gone?

[duffman91]

If you put your drive in a ziplock bag and put it in the freezer for 30 minutes, you will be able to read some of the data once reconnected.

Not too sure why it works, but I've done it several times. You should be able to backup whatever was important then.

If you want to make sure the drive is dead, hit it with a hammer.

[Pooinyourmouth_needmerge]

I lost 20 gigs of music in much the same way.

The drive screwed up from a crappy molex Y connector. One of the wires came ever so slightly loose, and the hard drive was being flicked on and off a few times per second. That's a sure fire way to screw a HDD.

[R00k]

If you want to make sure the drive is dead, hit it with a hammer.

That made me laugh.

[losCHUNK]

If you put your drive in a ziplock bag and put it in the freezer for 30 minutes, you will be able to read some of the data once reconnected.

Not too sure why it works, but I've done it several times. You should be able to backup whatever was important then.
.

you being serious ? lol

my old 30 gig drive died ages ago with all my music on it

you reckon itll work ? or is there a timescale on that ?

[duffman91]

If you put your drive in a ziplock bag and put it in the freezer for 30 minutes, you will be able to read some of the data once reconnected.

Not too sure why it works, but I've done it several times. You should be able to backup whatever was important then.
.

you being serious ? lol

my old 30 gig drive died ages ago with all my music on it

you reckon itll work ? or is there a timescale on that ?

I've had it work 75% of the time. Google it. I'm sure somebody goes into more detail about it. But it does work.


http://www.meetmyattorney.com/slink/mt- ... 00275.html

http://www.pcmech.com/show/harddrive/664/7

[rep]

I haven't used DOS in at least 50 centuries, but there is a command that will write all the files and folders you have to a text file.

Handy if you're trying to find old stuff you had archived that you got off the net. (Handy for PDF files, etc.)

[l0g1c]

I've heard the freezer trick works too. I had one come close to dying on me. It wasn't spinning up when I would boot the computer. I took it out, gave it a good spanking and put it back in. Been working ever since, too

[Pauly]

Format c:

[Transient]

I'll give that freezer trick a try later on tonight. Thanks. :icon14:

[l0g1c]

edit: @ Transient

Before you do, take the drive halfway out and hold it while the computer starts to see if you can feel it spinning up. If it's an older drive, sometimes you can just hear it too. If it is spinning up, just use a knoppix disk to try to recover your files. If not, then it's freezer/spanking fo sho.

[Dr.Gibbs]

I've used nothing but WD drives my whole life, and I've only had one die on me... it died last week. It was my main drive. I needed a reinstall anyway I guess

I bought a 160GB Maxtor for $40 to replace it...

[Don Carlos]

I've used nothing but WD drives my whole life, and I've only had one die on me... it died last week. It was my main drive. I needed a reinstall anyway I guess

I bought a 160GB Maxtor for $40 to replace it...

:icon28:

ITS YOU

[Kills On Site]

Well I mainly work with Maxtor and I love their HDDs. Here is my list of HDDs I've used so far in both buisness and personal.

Maxtor:

• 1x10GB
  1x60GB
  7x80GB
  1x120GB
  1x200GB

Western Digital:

• 2x36GB Raptors
  1x74GB Raptor
  1x120GB

Seagate:

• 1x40GB

Now one of the 80GB Maxtors was an old external drive that wasn't too friendly till I pulled it out and zero filled it, now it is a reliable drive. The 40GB Seagate was given to me as it failed a friend and was the boot drive, again after a zero fill it works quite well.

When HDDs mess up I find that zero filling will do one of two things; A. make it work properly and reliably or B. crash the drive from the constant work of the writing. While the B option has never happened I'd imagine a zero fill is quite stressful on a drive and if it is going to fail a zero fill will kill it before you lose data with it

[Transient]

WTF, I was just about to take the hard drive out and stick it in the freezer when I decided to reboot once just to see if it would come back. I never expected it to show up again, but in the small chance it did, rebooting only takes a moment.

'Lo and behold, the drive is now back!
Well I copied everything on the drive to another location and am burning it to a CD right fucking now. :lol:

Can anyone give me a prognosis? Will that drive die soon or what?

[brisk]

What did you call your drive? Jesus?

But seriously, maybe the IDE/power cable became loose or something? That has happened to me before, and luckilly I didn't lose any data.

But now that you've copied all the data, you may as well replace it. Old drives are slow, run at hot temperatures, and need to be replaced.

[Transient]

I think I'm just gonna toss it. It was only 10 GB, and I have more than enough room on my other hard drive for everything I need.